So, when all of a sudden we're getting 3-5 inches of rain in a day and I'm watching the river rise and the inside of my house looks just as wet as the outside I'm not really sure how to handle the comment that there's a cyclone coming.
I'm kinda like...
Right now?!
You're telling me it's going to get worse?!
Where the hell are you going?
Why are you even outside?
Aren't you alarmed? In anyway?
This is the most amount of rain I've probably ever seen in my entire life.
And luckily (odd that I say that) I AM somewhat relieved when I do get a text message telling me that there IS a tropical depression coming our way!
At least this is more of an official weather report and not some street small talk here and I can prepare properly for what I expect to be bad.
So, around 3:30 in the morning on January something I woke up to the sound of strong winds. I was afraid to open my door to see what was going on outside but luckily I could peek through the cracks and see that I could probably open my door without being sucked outside or random objects flying inside. So from 5-7 in the morning I sat inside my home and watched the weather progressively get worse. Around 7 my neighbors came running over for me to cook them breakfast. High winds aren't great weather conditions to start a fire. We continued to watch the weather as we ate.
People were running up the hill in front of my house to gain higher ground and that's when I was thinking how insanely unprepared these people were.
I just happen to be texting my brother in the US and he starts sending all these photos of us as kids and asks, "are you going to die?"
And at that point it felt like it with my life literally flashing before my eyes. Thanks brother.
As people are running by with their small children on their backs they simply wave and hollar, "it's wet, huh?"
Uhhh, Sure is!
People start gathering inside the community center with as much as their hands could hold. My neighbors left and started preparing beds for others.
It's about 9AM and I'm staying in touch with two other PCVs through text and it seems to be pretty awful everywhere.
So, we wait and wait and wait.
It starts to slow down around 2 in the afternoon and I see a bunch of people running to go "watch the water". I chose not to because I couldn't really do anymore of that in one day.
It continued to rain for the next 12 hours or so and the next day I decide to walk around and "watch the water" too. And this is when my jaw dropped and I thought holy shit... This is bad...
The houses at the bottom of the hill were half way under water. The river raised 25 feet and the rushing water was so loud you couldn't hear people talking to you on the bridge. 
Another bridge that was the road to all the villages towards the east was completely under water. 
And the road going north was under water as well... 
Sooo, we played in it!
The road to another peace corps' volunteers house was completely underwater. 
This is two men getting material from my town by canoe because clearly the road is flooded. Those two posts on the left are soccer goal posts.
The water went down as quickly as it had risen and the community went to work immediately to repair the roads, bridges, schools, and houses. Kids went to school about 10 days after the storm hit. The community is looking better, almost better than before the storm hit as people are really coming together and cleaning up.
Sadly, 13 (and possibly more) people died in the storm in my community caused by drowning or houses/trees falling on them.
It was a bad storm, I think we were all surprised by the flood caused by the previous days' rains and I personally felt very unprepared for the damage. I can't imagine what it must feel like to lose my entire house let alone a family member in a natural disaster.
The government given aid for each household was a tablespoon of oil and two cups of rice. And that's all I'll say on that note because that's absurd to me.
However, with being very unprepared and with no help from the Malagasy government many people are staying extremely positive.
As Malagasy say when we celebrate a birthday or new year, "tratra ny taona!- da Samy ho tratra ny hoavy" Meaning we caught another year and we'll "catch" the next, as we are still alive, as awkward as it may seem to celebrate catching a cyclone, we made it through and I agreed, we'll make it through the next.
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